Judging Freedom - How Strong is Ukraine Offensive w/Larry Johnson & Ray McGovern

Episode Date: June 30, 2023

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Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. WGU is an online accredited university that specializes in personalized learning. With courses available 24-7 and monthly start dates, you can earn your degree on your schedule. You may even be able to graduate sooner than you think by demonstrating mastery of the material you know. Make 2025 the year you focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu. Hi everyone, Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Friday, June 30th, 2023. It's a little after 2 o'clock in the afternoon. Welcome to a very special and for us uniquely formatted edition of Judging Freedom with two of our most popular regulars, two guys who have become very dear friends of mine and who have

educated me and educated you on the excesses of the American government, particularly the intelligence community. Larry Johnson, you know who he is, and Ray McGovern, you know who he is. Gentlemen, thank you for joining us, and thank you for agreeing to come on together on this hot, sticky, at least here in the Northeast, afternoon preceding the 4th of July weekend. Larry, give us a little bit of background on understanding the Wagner group, who put them together, who ran them, most importantly, who paid for them. The American people have a major misunderstanding about Wagner. They think it's his creation and that he's really good friends with Putin. The fact of the matter is Wagner was set up by Russian military intelligence, the GRU.

Prokosin is a figurehead. He's a businessman. The GRU set this up as a private military contractor, just like the CIA will have contracts with private military contractors. It's run out of a military intelligence unit, but this gives the government of Russia some plausible deniability. So it's been around for years. Prokoshin was making a lot of money off of it. He's been a government contractor with the Ministry of Defense for a while. Think of Prigozhin like General Dynamics, Lockheed, or Raytheon. He is that kind of military contractor.

But what Prigozhin did was he cut side deals where the Wagner Group could make money outside of the money that was coming from the Ministry of Defense. Who would pay them? Who would pay Prokosian or who would pay Wagner other than the Russian military Ministry of Defense? So, for example, there was a Syrian warlord that wanted to get his hands on Conoco oil that was under the control of the Kurds in Syria. So Wagner agreed, hey, you know, we'll take the money from you. And they launched a military operation. And again, it was against a US military outpost that was defending the Conoco oil site. And so the US military at Qatar, they've got a joint air operations center. They called up the Russians. They go, hey, are these your guys? And the Russians go, nope, not our

guys. So Wagner got out there and a bunch of them got killed. And that's actually the start of where Prigozhin's anger at the Ministry of Defense came from. And the Ministry of Defense was trying to rein him in. The real people at fault in all of this coup activity is the Russian military intelligence, the GRU. Those guys that were supposed to be keeping tabs and control of Prokosin, they failed. And I suspect they were getting some money under the table from Procosian. Ray, wouldn't the American CIA and other intel assets have known well in advance of what Procosian was doing? You teased the audience about this when you announced that I didn't even know this had happened. You have great sources that there was an intel briefing to the gang of eight Congress within the Congress on the Wednesday before the prognosis weekend. Pretty clear that you were correct in your sources and your sources were accurate. But was anybody surprised when this happened?

Didn't the Russians know what's going to happen? Didn't the Ukrainians know what's going to happen? Didn't the Americans know what's going to happen because of the intel and everybody spying on everybody else? If you look at the sequence of events, Bogosian was fired. He're not going to pay you anymore. His troops, the Wagner troops, were also told to sign up with the military. Wagner is pretty much over. That's what precipitated all this stuff.

Anybody knew that who read the newspaper, anyone knew that who realized that the Russians said, well, the game is up. You've done a great job for us in Bakhmut. I mean, you took all those convicts and you sent them forward and half of them got killed, but you got Bakhmut, and we weren't even sure that you were going to do that. As a matter of fact, you did this pretty much on your own. Thanks a lot for that, but now it's over.

So I take a simplistic view at this. Yeah, the CIA and MI6 and others know at least as much as I did, but the only surprise, to the degree there was a surprise, is that he decided to march on Moscow. And, you know, as feckless as the intelligence agencies are, you know, it's really hard for me to believe that they thought he would have any success. When and if he told them, were they going to say,

no, don't do that? No. All right, go ahead. So was what Ray first and then Larry, was this a real coup or act of treason, which in any way threatened the Russian state? Scott Ritter says it was an act of treason. You had armed military marching on the nation's capital and threatening words coming out of the mouth of the head of the group. But Ritter also believes they weren't going to get the first base if they had gone another few hundred kilometers. 10,000 Russian troops would have wiped them out.

Ray? It was a mutiny. Okay. Treason is what Putin called it. And he was speaking very strongly in that first little speech. But if precaution is not in the military, if he's got this independent outfit, the most you can call it, in my view, is a mutiny. Some call it treason. That's okay. But it wasn't going to get anywhere. And the Russians knew that. If the MI6 and CIA people knew that, well, at least they didn't discourage him. Maybe he said, hey, I got these great people going to rise up in Moscow. And our guy said, well, OK, give it a chance.

What's to lose for us? And what's the game for us is to make this fiction that Putin isn't entirely under control, in control. And the proof is in the pudding. His approval ratings have skyrocketed since they used to be 70 percent%. So, you know, it all backfired to the degree that people were really behind it. Prigozhin was the, was a dramatic persona. He was the guy driving this thing. He had legitimate, in his view, grievances. He went off half-cocked, and we know the rest of the story. It looks like the Russians are very firmly in control, Putin especially, and all the people who stayed loyal to him. The implications for what happens in Ukraine are immense because if he's feeling like he's on a roll, his natural tendency to be circumspect is, well, yeah, let's just attrit these people.

Let's just get it over with. Gradually, he'll be under pressure now to go ahead all the way to the river there, to the Dnieper, which separates eastern from western Ukraine. Larry, two questions. Who was behind this? Was your mutual former employer, the CIA, behind this? And was President Putin or his government ever in danger of being destabilized, attacked, kidnapped, assaulted, whatever verb you want to use? We know from the Texera, Jack Texera, the airman that was arrested for posting documents on this Discord channel, that Prigozhin was in Africa, met with Ukrainian

military intelligence, and I believe British intelligence. The CIA was not directly involved with this. They were indirectly, they were recipients of information about what was going on. But the Brits and the Ukrainians pitched Prokhorin to become an asset. Now, didn't the GRU know about that? Wouldn't Russian intelligence know the minute it's happening? Yeah. So the Russian intelligence knew about this, but they allowed it to play out. And they allowed it to play out for a variety of reasons. One, to identify if there were any other threats. Two, to get an idea of what the foreign networks, Ukrainian and British intelligence networks were, who they were working with. But they were well prepared in advance. We know that by virtue of the fact that the different number of troops,

the Ahmad battalion were mobilized and waiting for Prigozhin's troops. So the Russians were not caught unawares. We also know that Prigozhin leaked, according to those documents, intelligence information about the location of Russian troops. The Russians again again, permitted that

because leaking to the NATO, the location of Russian troops is, as I've said in other forum, it's like sending Eskimos in January, a truckload of snow because the NATO already had that information through intelligence survey, surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities.

So Prigozhin was actually being backed. He was being encouraged to do this and probably promised that if he would help overthrow the Ministry of Defense, that the West would back his desires to lead Russia. And he was foolish enough to buy into that. But he didn't prepare properly. And some of his military commanders were supporting him, but some were not. So President Putin and the stability of his government,

Putin personally, were never in jeopardy. Never, never. And they were not caught unawares. They knew this was coming. The timing of Bogosian's move is particularly interesting. It happened on the last day of a major NATO military exercise in Europe. And I personally believe that the part of the plan, the backup plan, was that if Prigozhin succeeded in taking over the Ministry of Defense, that NATO then would be in a position that they could provide air support

to Prokosian and to his rebellious troops. But that never panned out. In fact, we know from watching a variety of Telegram and Twitter channels that people like Michael McFaul, others in the intelligence community fully expected this Prokosian to pull it off actually in the West. And they were shocked,

absolutely shocked. I know that indirectly through a friend of mine who's talked to one of his buddies still on the inside of the CIA, that the CIA had thought it was the real offer. And then they finally came to the conclusion on Sunday, Monday, that it was deception. Ray, this is on the part of Prokosian. Treason, pure and simple by even the narrowest definition of treason, waging war on the state, giving aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime. There's no way around it. The question is, who is the prime actor here? Good. Who is?

And you're quite right. It was a mutiny or treason. But he was his own actor here. He was about to lose his job. He was about to lose all his contracts with the Ministry of Defense. $2 billion a year. Give me a break. So did the Allied services know about this?

Yes. I knew that he was so disenchanted and he had melagomania, okay? Now, as I've said before, an arrow in the quiver of every intelligence service is to play on these illusions of grandeur. And if it looks like it might have a chance, even if it's 10% of a chance, and there's no downside, sure, play on that. You think you have a lot of support in Moscow? Be our guest. See what happens. Nothing's loose from our side.

So the other thing is that it was a huge distraction from the fact that the Ukrainians are taking it on the chin in Ukraine. We haven't even talked about that. We haven't even really talked about the level of military might. What happened to the Ukrainians, Ray, while the world was watching Prokosian's march? Well, they got obliterated by these hypersonic Russian missiles, most recently at Kramatorsk. Now, there was a meeting there, I would have said to be maybe 100 senior officers, including two Ukrainian generals, 20 allied mercenaries and allied advisors, okay? They were creamed by this missile. Where were they? They were in a civilian structure. That's

where you get all these charges about Russians hitting civilians. That's where the Ukrainians go to meet. So what I'm saying here is that at best, it was a distraction from these losses that Ukraine is suffering. It's not going to last very long because the losses are going to continue. The only question is whether Putin is right in saying, well, look, okay, they've not been able to breach our lines, but they still have not committed a substantial portion of their force. So will the Russian strategy be to just grind them, grind them, grind them all the way into the muddy season? Or will the Russians say, let's go. We got free reign to go to the Dnieper.

Let's do it. And then we'll ask NATO and the U.S. and the Ukrainian, are you willing to talk now? Larry, what has become of General Serovkin? Yeah, well, yeah, there's Serovkin. And Serovkin, he's still in place, still operating. The questions raised about his whereabouts is another example of Western propaganda. So I fell for that. I thought he had been under house arrest. No, no. He's the one that organized the military response and the preparation to counter Pogosian.

He's the one that activated and directed uh the troops of the achmat battalion so one of the things the russians did in the course of this mutiny was they were able to move troops into locations under the guise of responding to the coup that otherwise they would not have moved if they tried to move them under normal circumstances, NATO would have detected it, and they would have been seen as prepping for an offensive action. Because I think one of the areas we're seeing the concentration now of Russian forces is north of Kharkiv and north and east of Kiev. So Russia, I think, as Ray points out, they could continue with the grind, but I think they're actually in a position now to launch offensive along a variety of axes of

attack. And the key period is the next two weeks, leading up to the NATO summit in Vilnius, because if the Ukraine has not, and frankly, cannot breach any part of the Russian defensive line, they haven't even reached the first wall of it. I was just going to ask you that. Ray Progozhin boasted in the statement he made Sunday night, I don't know if he's said anything public since then, it's now Friday afternoon, that he was greeted warmly by the people in Rostov-on-Don. Did I pronounce that right?

The way Ray McGovern does? Rostov-on-Don. What happened in Rostov-on-Don? Did Progozhin's people take over a military installation, surround a town, march into the town, and had roses thrown at their feet? What happened there? Well, Judge, when you have a billion dollars to spend, you're going to do a real good PR effort,

okay? Really, Prokosian has a terrific following in Russia. He was the hero of Bakhmut, for God's sake. Yeah, it cost half of his prisoners that were cannon fodder, but he got Bakhmut. So he was welcome. Yeah, there was no fighting. What did they say that there's going to be fighting? He was welcome. And then when it became news, when Patrick Lawrence showed up with his camera, that, hey, they're just going to withdraw without any bloodletting. Oh, then they were euphoric. And you can see the pictures. You can see the

videos of that. So, yeah, that was one reason why Putin didn't want to do this guy in right away. He may eventually get what's coming to him for treason. But the object of the game there was not to give the West any real reason, not confected or artificial reasons to think that Putin was not completely in control. And one indication of how in control he felt, I thought, was to say, all right, this guy is crazy, but we're not going to string him up right now. We're not even going to prosecute him. We'll let him go to Belarus, okay? That's big. Now, if I were feeling sort of weak and challenged by really hardliners, I think I would have killed the guy on the spot. Larry, is there any question in your mind that President Putin is actually stronger and more appreciated by more Russian people today than he was last Friday before this episode began?

No, no doubt i i think it's important to look at the the the themes the west it has advanced about russia i went back and i pulled chronologically starting in 2007 just did a google search using the term putin weak and it's fascinating what i came up with. You see that this concept of Putin being a weak leader and Russia being a weak, a gas station country and then falling apart, that started to emerge in 2014 as Russia was contemplating going into Syria to assist the Syrians in their fight against Islamic rebels that we, the West, were backing. So it's as Putin's foreign policy began to counter U.S. interests, then the theme that emerged from CSIS, John Hopkins,

all the major think tanks in Washington was, oh, Putin's weak, Putin's a failure. Putin's sick. Putin's incompetent. And they keep that up. And it's really intensified now with the failure of this, well, I'll call it what it is, a Western-backed coup, in my view. And that failure of this Western-backed coup has just infuriated the neocons. They thought, Putin's got to go. He's weak. He can't continue. Meanwhile,

what is Victoria Nuland whispering into Vladimir Zelensky's ear this afternoon? He's saying, Vladimir, you can't come to Vilnius. It's not going to be a real good reception for you at the NATO summit beginning on July 11th. Is he going to that NATO summit on July 11th? They told him not to come. And Solutioni appeared, reappeared, you know, out of the ashes today and said, well, you know, we won't want to come if you won't give us more arms. That's what we need, more arms. So General Solution is not dead and is not incapacitated.

Well, not bodily to observe him, but he says, you all have to get, you stop acting like cowards and give us the weapons that we need or else we're not coming. They had already been disinvited, for God's sake. So that's what Toland was trying to figure out, how we work this thing. Meanwhile, just today, Lavrov, who was worth listening to, said, you know, the West wants to temporarily freeze this conflict to win more time, to deploy more military infrastructure, and deploy more long-range weapons. Well, yeah, I think that's what the West wants to do.

The question now is, will the Russians, who I see on a roll now after this failed counteroffensive, will they move now to prevent that kind of freezing and before the mud starts making it impossible for them to move further, or will they keep this little, that little big attrition, big grinding sort of thing? I don't know which one it is, but a couple of weeks, we'll know. Larry, is it a stalemate, or are the Russians going to triumph over this and chase Zelensky either to his grave or to his house in Miami?

Yeah, well, if he survives, it will be because the coup didn't come off. But Ukraine is losing. They are not making any significant advances along the line of conflict in their now four-week-old counter-offensive. And they haven't even gotten to the position of having to deal with actual Russian defenses. So the time is running out on them. The last thing I think, though, Biden is going to approve, I believe, giving Atakum missiles and cluster munitions to the Ukrainians it'll be it'll be the U.S sort of last gesture okay here you go see what you can do with this all that's

going to do is escalate the conflict with Russia and it you know part of the part of the bet here is uh Ukraine's only hope is to bring NATO in it and hope that NATO forces get engaged militarily. Ray, I just learned a little while ago that the two of you are part of a group. I've been familiar with the group for many years, as Larry knows, which wrote to President Biden in January, basically saying, you don't know what the hell you're doing. Did he answer the letter? I'm really offended. He doesn't answer veteran intelligence professionals for sanity letters.

He just answers people that can't really convince other people that they're sane. So he doesn't like much sanity. God save the queen. Or the Russians lost in Iraq. Did you know that? Right. I mean, for those of you that don't know what Ray is talking about,

he is quoting the President of the United States. God save the Queen about 10 days ago and Putin losing in Iraq, he said, just two days ago. Gentlemen, it is always a pleasure, a happy Independence Day weekend. I happen to believe it's the last moral war we ever fought was our secession from Great Britain. Another debate. You're both historians for another time. God love you. The audience loves you.

Thank you for joining us today. We will be dark for the four-day holiday weekend, unless there's breaking news in my end of the world. Be back full blast with Ray and with Larry in their usual time slots starting Wednesday. We are very close. We're about 100 shy of 150,000 subscribers by the 4th of July. I think you'll get us there. Like, subscribe, tell a friend, more as we get it. Happy Independence Day, Judge Napolitano, for judging freedom. Thank you. Resolve to earn your degree in the new year in the Bay with WGU. With courses available online 24-7 and monthly start dates,

WGU offers maximum flexibility so you can focus on your future. Learn more at wgu.edu.